It is often said that beauty is

Answer choices

1. A

   Strengthens5% picked this

   Few contemporary artists have been significantly exposed to the art of

   This helps rule out the idea that modern artists conceptualize beauty similarly to how earlier artists did because they've learned the earlier standards of beauty through significant exposure to their art. In other words, if people on deserted islands with no contact with each other keep coming to the same conclusion, that feels more like an objective reality. The more cutoff modern artists are from earlier artists, the more this author can sell beauty as an objective idea that we all recognize (rather than the potential alternative explanation for consistent standards of beauty through the years -- each culture learns its standards of beauty from exposure to the previous cultures')

   5%
2. B

   Out of Scope: important place3% picked this

   The arts held a much more important place in earlier cultures than they do

   We're only discussing whether similar standards of beauty between now and then indicate that beauty is objective, rather than subjective. Whether the arts held a similarly important place now vs. then is irrelevant to that matter.

   3%
3. C

   Correct64% picked this

   Our own standard of beauty was strongly influenced by our exposure to works that were considered

   Why this is right

   This offers an alternative explanation for why our culture's standards of beauty match those of earlier cultures: it's not because beauty is objective; it's because the subjective standards of beauty operational in earlier cultures strongly influenced our own standards of beauty. This is essentially saying, "I'm a baseball fan because my dad was. He was because his dad was. And so on ... " (By the way I hate baseball and am disgusted every time I type these words. Phew. Had to get that off my chest.)

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   64%
4. D

   Out of Scope: important work24% picked this

   Much of what passes for important artistic work today would not be considered beautiful even

   Similar to (B), the concept of "importance" is irrelevant to this conversation. We're only debating whether the existence of similar standards of beauty indicates that beauty is objective, rather than subjective.

   24%
5. E

   Out of Scope: ownership of art5% picked this

   In most cultures art is owned by a small

   This argument isn't about who possesses art; it's about the overall culture's standards of beauty. In most high schools, only a small group of people get to date the head cheerleader or Prom king/queen, but it can still be true that the majority of the school would accept that the Prom King / Queen fulfill the accepted standards of beauty. If someone compared what were considered the most beautiful artworks of a previous era with those of the modern era, this argument is saying we would be struct by how similar the standards of beauty are. That is regardless of who actually owned / owns these pieces of art.

   5%